Two tiered membership

[JonathanCole]

Why not have the person who starts a thread be a co-moderator with Jeff. This person can state the rules of the thread. They can privately message offenders. If people don't respond positively, then they can be referred to Jeff for possible loss of membership or other sanction.

I have noticed that there are a lot of guys who like to argue even if they can't make a very good case. These people are insecure and often engage in browbeating and intimidation. Sometimes it seems that they have completely closed minds. Although forums thrive on freedom, it has been scientifically demonstrated that societies without rules disintigrate because they lose members.

Another possible idea is to have threads that invite participation by specific individuals. These threads could be by invitation only. The opening post could be available to all and then people could request to participate.
It would make possible much more project oriented postings, where people of like mind really collaborate on developing designs/projects/etc. Of course I don't know if its technically achievable.

[DanishBagger]

Originally Posted by JonathanCole

I have noticed that there are a lot of guys who like to argue even if they can't make a very good case. These people are insecure and often engage in browbeating and intimidation. Sometimes it seems that they have completely closed minds.

Although not strictly on topic, but I can't help but laugh at the above, coming from the same guy that tried to argue that saying elitist behaviour and opinions is elitism, was name-calling. Good grief.

Originally Posted by JonathanCole

The problem with words like elitist, is that it is ascribing motive to people you don't even know. The reason that people say things that you INTERPRET as elitism may be wholly different than you think. You may be wrong about their motive. Yet you are setting yourself up as the arbiter of what is elitist. You might consider whether that is fair.

hypocrisy

[JonathanCole]

Danish Bagger,

Are you calling me a hypocrite or an elitist? You better look in the mirror, my friend ,if you want to see the problem.

[DanishBagger]

Originally Posted by JonathanCole

Danish Bagger,

Are you calling me a hypocrite or an elitist? You better look in the mirror, my friend ,if you want to see the problem.

I am not your friend, nor have I any intention of being one to you.

What am saying? I am saying, as you can see in the above post, that I have shown that the two opposing views in your two posts are indeed hypocrisy. It seems you somehow think that elitism and hypocrisy doesn't go well together? I never said that one of them exclude the other, nor will I.

I know it must be hard when outed like that, but do you really expect people to ignore you when you claim one thing one moment, and the next the opposite, while accusing other for being the problem?

What's your next trick?

[Figgy]

Easy now fellas. Isnt this the behaviour we're trying to do away with? Dang, next thing you know people are going to be givin' each othor bad reps out of anger. Why is this thread active anyways? Jeff went with the Rep feature and not the two-tiered membership, lets kill it.

[DanishBagger]

Yup, let's kill it.

Btw, I don't think one can receive -minus reps, can you do that?

Anyway, I still think it's a bad idea

[Jeff]

DanishBagger: Yes after 100 posts you should have the option to either "approve" of (+rep points) or "disapprove" of (-rep points) a post.

Figgy: thanks and well said. I'll go ahead and close this thread for now, but we may revisit if the easier and less drastic options don't have the desired effect to bring us back to the friendly and idea-driven community we want the forums to be.